Ryan: Eventual nominee will support GOP budget

NBC News today asked House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) this question after he unveiled his budget plan that cuts trillions in spending: Will the eventual GOP nominee support it?

Ryan's answer: “Absolutely. I'm confident saying it.”

He added, “Whoever our nominee is going to be owes the country that choice of two futures. We're helping them put this together. And each of these people running for president have all given their various ideas on reforms, some that perfectly jive -- are consistent with what we're proposing here.”

In May of 2011, Democrat Kathy Hochul won a special election in a conservative leaning district right outside of Buffalo, NY. Her path to victory was an all-out assault on Ryan's budget -- specifically its overhaul of Medicare. Signs that read, “Save Medicare Vote Democratic!” were plastered all around the district. Hochul’s upset victory and gain of a GOP seat galvanized Democrats. They saw running against Ryan’s budget as the key to winning over seniors, a group that had largely left them in the 2010 midterm elections.

Around that time, Ryan’s budget, which had passed the House 235-193 on a largely party line vote, garnered some criticism from GOP presidential nominees. In May on "Meet the Press," Newt Gingrich called the Ryan budget “right-wing social engineering”; Gingrich has since backtracked and now supports it including the new one unveiled today.

Front-runner Mitt Romney embraced Ryan's budget today, with the campaign releasing this statement from the candidate:

"I applaud House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and his colleagues for taking a bold step toward putting our nation back on the track to fiscal sanity and robust economic growth."